If Sasha Baron Cohen had guts, heโd do a Borat sequel where Borat goes to the Ivy League. He wonโt have much trouble getting students and faculty to join in a rendition of โThrow the Jew Down the Well.โ
If McCormick pulls it out and wins the general election, one lesson from the example of him and Glenn Youngkin is that "Mitt Romney with culture-war cred" can be a winning formula for the GOP in purple states.
1. Last week,
@Target
announced it was closing 9 stores due to theft, generating an avalanche of credulous coverage from nearly every major media outlet
One thing that was missing from all these stories: DATA
So Popular Information tracked it down
๐งต
As PJ OโRourke wrote at the time the Wall came down, the most amazing accomplishment of Communism was that it managed to impoverish a nation of Germans.
โWe know the assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh took place in a climate of years-long escalating delegitimization and baseless attacks led by the media and Democratic politicians, as well as escalating campaigns against the conservative Justicesโฆโ
You can argue that political figures from both sides suffer from political violence, often from mentally unstable people. But only one side really seems to enjoy themselves when it happens.
A lot of โSCOTUS expert typesโ seem to believe that the Court has a responsibility to deliver their desired political outcome regardless of the law.
Seeing a lot of freaking out right now among SCOTUS expert types that the court is going to delay Trumpโs federal trial till after the election by keeping this immunity case goingโฆ ๐ฅถ
GOP Math:
1) No one can win the GOP nomination without appealing to a substantial number of Trump voters. Major problem for Haley.
2) No GOP nominee can win a general election without appealing to a substantial number of Haley voters. Major problem for Trump.
Personally I believe the leaker should be disbarred and never work in the legal profession again, regardless of whether it turns out to have been a liberal or conservative.
Iโll repeat: whoever advised Columbiaโs president to beg off that Congressional hearing literally deserves a bonus larger than Shohei Ohtaniโs contract.
To my liberal friends or followers: I am *begging* you not to take your lead on SCOTUS matters from Ian Millhiser or Mark Joseph Stern. Each of these men spew constant combinations of ignorance & bad faith. The mix varies but the result will almost always leave you less informed.
Three of these stories (NBC, Politico, and Axios) went up smearing Thomas, and all seemed borne out of a viral Mark Joseph Stern tweet. Some stories have issued minor corrections, but most of these bad tweets (from outlets and reporters!) are still up.
Iโm having a hard time squaring the facts of Hamasโ enormous arsenal with the constant invocations of the Gaza blockade having been โsuffocating.โ
11 days into the war, Hamas is still firing on central Israel. Their ability to target major cities remains. 6,500 rockets have been fired into Israel since last Saturday.
Thankfully after two years of disruption from a pandemic that killed more than 1 mil Americans, schools are already working on helping kids recover and thrive. This is a year to accelerate learning by rebuilding relationships, focusing on the basics
It's kind of amazing that this article could be written without even *mentioning* the fact that a man who stated that he was motivated by these same concerns about SCOTUS rulings just attempted to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh.
@byelin
@philipaklein
For an indictment of a former President I donโt want to see any of the following words used to describe the charges: โnovel,โ โaggressive,โ โunprecedentedโ and the like. I prefer charges like in the classified documents indictments where the operative phrase is โdead to rights.โ
Every word of this โฆ
@bariweiss
โฉ missive. The phrase โmeeting the momentโ is so often used to describe some progressive gobbedlygook or counterproductive gesture; this is what the phrase means.
Itโs almost as if many individuals who agree and have written extensively about the record of DOJ corruption - as well as the non existent substance of the Bragg indictment - are capable of distinguishing different types of evidence.
Iโm stunned to see individuals who know the depth of DOJ corruption, who write about it, who tweet about itโgive a shred of legitimacy to this indictment.
NEW
@PuckNews
: The Age of Biden: Many in WH press corps have spent the last couple years noticeably avoiding the topic of the presidentโs agility and acuity because it felt indelicate or irrelevant. Now, the Hur report has stirred some soul-searching.
โThe taboo against believing your own eyes and ears was shattered last night. And that taboo was guarding Joe Biden.โ โฆ
@michaelbd
โฉ has it right.
We cannot allow this guy to resign. His entertainment Value Over Replacement Politician is off the charts. And unlike an unfit President, heโs not in a position to inflict that much damage even if he tries.
George Santos says he helped develop carbon capture technology, โIโve had a very extensive role in the gas and oil in this country.โ
#ResignGeorgeSantos
The white American woman billionaire who could end the genocide of Palestinians with on IG post is TIME Person of The Year.
White nonsense, white violence, white love of Black and brown genocide.
Biden is reading a NY Times fact check and
@Milbank
column to House Dems about how oil companies are more responsible for gas prices because theyโre not using existing capacity - โdonโt tell me gas prices are up because Iโve slowed down energy productionโ
EXCLUSIVE: Former Rep.
@WillHurd
(R-Texas) says he plans to decide whether to run for president in 2024 "very soon."
"I think the decision on anybody on their future in politics has to be done before Memorial Day."
A friend who asked to remain nameless: "If you have lived in NYC for 23 years without ever encountering a half-naked lunatic on the subway, you're taking too many cabs."
Hi - New Yorker here. Iโve safely ridden the subway for 23 years and my child has never been menaced by a half naked lunatic, but these imaginary monsters in your head are addressable with therapy.
Another validation for my thesis that Vivek is the GOPโs Mayor Pete: he was never the biggest threat on the D side in 2020 but the other candidates, especially the blessed Klobuchar, could not stand him.
When did you first realize that the GOP was becoming an extremist, anti-democratic cult? For me it was way back in the 90s; people forget how many Rs refused to accept Clinton as legitimate and the proliferation of conspiracy theories 1/
Appalling as
@vijaya
has tackled a thankless task for
@jack
for a long time now and he should publicly support her and push back on this kind of toxicity. We saw your high-fives for Elon, Jack, and cool beans, but perhaps show a little respect and loyalty to her.
Whenever a lonely academic contemplates a career of drudgery and despairs of ever making a difference, s/he should remember Mark Tushnetโs โwe won, they lostโ article from 2016 and take heart: one academic - even with a lowly blog post - truly can change the world.
Get ready for a resumption of "GOP is only objecting to endless stimulus/anything else a D President wants because they want to destroy the economy/nihilism" discourse. It was ridiculous in the Obama era and will be more so now.
This is blindingly obvious, but worth stating over and over. A GOP house majority would have every incentive to do whatever possible to make the US economy worse in the run-up to 2024. The only reason *not* to do that is some sense of public duty, and I'm not holding my breath.
Very little chance this is true, given Robertsโ commitment to the Courtโs institutional norms. Overwhelming chance is that this came from Sotomayor, and Roberts may be so angry heโll join Alitoโs opinion.
So that sounds a lot like someone from Team Roberts leaking to try to convince the other five that this is too much backlash and they should do the "Roe is effectively dead but we're not gonna say so clearly" strategy instead of this.
Even more amazing is that Casey overturned an Alito appeals court decision and Alito got to write the opinion overturning it 30 years later. Count of Monte Christo level.
One thing which I don't think has been noted enough is that the three Justices who crafted the compromise decision seeking to preserve abortion rights in Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992)โO'Connor, Souter, and Kennedyโhave all lived to see its overturning.
Why are they doing this? For the basest reason possible- to win a couple of cases. They are literally campaigning "that's a nice Supreme Court you got there, be a shame if something happened to it".
In any event, this is just not something they get any say over.
@redsteeze
Cannot wait for the inevitable endorsement of OG election results denier Stacey Abrams over the GOP governor who actually stopped Trumpโs attempts to steal an election. Because protecting democracy requires it.
We did have something comparable over the summer, where a lefty tried to assassinate a conservative Supreme Court Justice specifically to try to stop the Dobbs decision. The โcoverageโ wasโฆnot this.
The thing I canโt stop thinking about is how different it would be if some far-left radical had tried to assassinate McConnell. It would be covered as devastating for Dems. Theyโd spend a week denouncing themselves. The midterms would be understood to be lost.
I suspect that if a draft of the majority opinion in Obergefell had leaked and conservatives were protesting at the homes of the liberal justices, the tone of press coverage and official reaction from the D Admin spokesperson wouldโve been slightly different.
My former colleague, the beloved โฆ
@miggyrod33
โฉ, died Monday at 47. I donโt know if he ever listened to Joe Roganโs podcast; I do know that, with 900,000 Americans dead of Covid, the misinformation spread there is inexcusable. My column. No paywall.
I'm sorry but ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. All those walls closing in for so many years...
Breaking News: The prosecutors leading the Manhattan district attorneyโs inquiry into Donald Trump have resigned. The D.A. is said to have doubts about the case.
Friends, Iโve decided that, after 20 years, Iโm leaving
@cnn
after my vacation. Was great to spend my last day on air with pals Wolf, Anderson and Don. Love all my former colleagues. Watch for my next book, about the Oklahoma City bombing, coming in 2023 from
@simonandschuster
Iโm not certain many journalists quite grasp what a reputational catastrophe they have brought upon themselves by supporting the suppression of the Hunter Biden story at the time and preferring to let bygones be bygones now.
The key to these feigned displays of high-mindedness is that they are heavy on what Israel shouldnโt do but conspicuously light on recommendations for what it should do.
The decisions being made now are going to impact millions of lives, reverberate for generations, and risk all kinds of escalation. The U.S. should have learned from 9/11 the profound cost of being guided by anger and fear. I hope that is what we are telling the Israeli government
No joke: this may have been the most compressed lifecycle of lunatic academic theory in US history. From law review article to serving as basis for numerous court decisions to getting rejected 9-0 by SCOTUS took literally seven months.
Veteran FBI agents and whistleblowers have been sounding the alarm about corruption at the bureauโs highest levels for years. People who merely doubt their integrity are not acting unfairly at all.
"Then I was trolling, now I'm super serious." Jonathan, we've been reading you for years. We know what your schtick is. That's why we've been reading you for so long. You're in a safe space here. You can admit it.
I wrote in my newsletter a couple months ago about how anti-anti-Trumpists are obsessed with that one, quickly retracted column I write before I took Trump seriously. Their obsession reveals more about them than me.
The greatest institutional counterrevolution of the last several decades is the Federalist Society and how it beat the liberal legal establishment at its own game.
Supreme Court commentators include some of the very worst journalists in the country: Lithwick, Mark Joseph Stern, Ian Millhiser and Elie Mystal all consistently produce a toxic brew of misinformation and emoting. They inevitably leave the readers less informed than before.
Speaking is
@Dahlialithwick
, Supreme Court reporter for
@Slate
, a rare example of a journalist with a beat who is openly critical of how her beat is covered.
The White House is doing to PPP what too many Rs are doing with Operation Warp Speed: redefining a policy triumph in such a way as to make it much less likely it will ever be repeated. Great job, guys. Hope youโre happy.
Dunno: taking sides against staffers who incite harassment against colleagues, pervert the meaning of journalism and levy demonstrably false claims seems like a perfectly appropriate thing for the NYT brass to do.
@maxwelltani
They're taking sides with this. They're playing dumb by pretending they're not, which is in itself lying to their staff and readers, but they are absolutely taking sides here.
What Israel and the US are doing in real time to Palestinians activate very recent, unhealed trauma around Western violence against Africans, Black Americans, Native Americans, Muslims, and pretty much the entire Global South.
But they donโt want us to talk about that.
Donald Trumpโs single-handed tanking of the Senate in the 2020 GA runoffs literally cost the country several trillion dollars, and thatโs aside from all the bad nominees and judges who could have been blocked but got confirmed.
Top US law firm Davis Polk announces in an internal email that it had rescinded letters of employment for three law students at Harvard University and Columbia University who signed on to organizational statements regarding Israel.
Lady, you bought a multimillion dollar home a block from the Capitol within six months of getting elected and then lied to press about living in your office. Please.
Both of my daughters have been arrested over the past week for refusing to disperse at pro-ceasefire demonstrations in New York. I raised those girls right!
A succinct summary of the view that elections won by the GOP donโt count. (It helps that the factual assertions are false.) Weโll be hearing much more of this over the next couple of years.
Worth saying that the idea that this will be determined through the democratic process is a cruel joke since this Court has also systematically dismantled the federal protection of voting rights and fair representation from state lawmakers who seek to limit both.
Biden has not been โbadly dividing his electoral coalition.โ His electoral coalition is split at a fundamental level on whether or not to support Israel and there is no choice that Biden can make that will unite them.
Beyond badly dividing his electoral coalition, Biden also is making himself look weak by failing to impose any cost for Netanyahuโs open disdain of his arguments over both the conduct of the war & its aftermath. Whoโs the effinโ superpower here indeed, as Bill Clinton once asked?
It's completely legitimate to point out how many oft-recommended security measures didn't work in this case. I have some bad news about the likelihood of currently proposed gun-control measures having greater effect, though.
Iโm sorry, but this is fucked. The school district did have armed police officers onsite; the students did active shooter drills. None of it kept those 19 kids alive. The tired old horseshit you have recited over a decade has been implemented and doesnโt come close to cutting it.
For the record, this โyoung judgeโ is as old as Toobinโs affair partner when he fathered a child with her (and older than when he started the affair).
The decision by the young Trump-appointed federal judge ending the mask mandate in travel shows the federal judiciary has turned into the Senate. Democratic and Republican judges live in different worlds and rule differently.
โOnce upon a time, the baby boomers took pride in challenging the powerful โ but when they got the power, they found they loved it too much to ever let it go.โ โฆ
@bdomenech
โฉ
NYT editor: โThatโs all you got? I had you spend six months trying to find dirt on DeSantisโ year as a teacher.โ
Reporters: โThis was the best we can do.โ
Editor: (deep sigh) โOK, weโll run it. May as well get some use out of it.โ
I've wondered before--why is it that American history for conservatives ends before the Civil War. The Founders are great, but WWII seems like a black hole for those in the movement, in terms of the story.
The story of what Florida is winning has to be told alongside what other states are losing. With Citadel departing, Illinois, and their preening wannabe-president Governor, lost a lot. My latest for
@RealClearFL
@janecoaston
One of my proudest moments was walking out of the theater after watching American Beauty in 1999 and saying loudly "That was garbage." Even at the time it was flattering Hollywood moguls that their desire to sleep with women half their age was of world-historical importance.
A lot of DC dirt in this piece, but this is the most damning part: The Biden admin has gotten a total pass on choosing a HHS Secretary during a global pandemic who is a political hack & whose only qualification is as an abortion culture warrior.
Advisers say Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman can engage in one-on-one conversations but struggles with more chaotic auditory environments, a condition that is common for stroke survivors and which doctors say can improve over time.